Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
‘FABULOUS’ IN HUNGARY - The powerhouse of industrial espionage
'FABULOUS' IN HUNGARY Hungary.334 Besides them, Karl Heinz Hoffman, a West German citizen of Polish origin, must be mentioned among the persons who represented Siemens and counted as an OMFB contact as he also spent considerable time in Budapest as Sebestyén ’s guest. During World War Two, he also served on a U-boat in Hitler’s forces.335 His name also came up in connection with the West German secret services and was included on the list of people who had connections to the BND, i.e. German intelligence, which was provided by the Romanian partner organisation.336 Counterintelligence was eyeing this network of contacts with suspicion and found it very dangerous not to have insight into exactly what was going on around it as the operational presence of the Ministry of Interior was not addressed. In other words, the level of agent presence at the institute was insufficient.337 For years, they observed that the writings of Emil Hoffmann, among others, regularly contained data and information on the Hungarian economy that state security deemed to be sensitive at the very least, but were unable to catch the source of the leaks. Under the cover name of ‘ Judit Kövesi’, they managed to recruit a secretary at the OMFB, but the lady did not belong to the innermost circles, so her reports painted only a vague picture of the leaders’ activities. She reported, for example, that the management of classified documents did not comply with the TÜK rules on the handling of secret documents, and it was therefore possible for sensitive information to end up with unauthorised persons: “Classified materials, mainly Comecon documents, are not managed according to the TÜK rules. To her knowledge, excerpts are made of several Comecon documents without any specific authorisations, and members of staff keep documents in their safes for extended periods of time. Most recently, it was only after lengthy arguments that Comrade Árpád Kiss returned Comecon documents he had handed over to János Sebestyén, but the documents were held by Dr Géza Schmor and Simon.”338 334 Ibid. p. 66 335 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-15829/7 p. 194 Note, 4 August 1972 336 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-15829/1, p. 99 Evaluation report, 20 September 1968 337 ÁBTL 3.1.5. 0-15829/1, p. 70 Note, 7 February 1964 338 ÁBTL 3.1.2. M-23802, p. 36 Report, 6 December 1962 125
